Does climatic risk induce labour migration? Evidence from Semi-Arid Tropics region of India

Abstract

The paper aims to focus on climatic risk as a potential determinant of temporary labour migration in Semi-Arid Tropics (SAT) village in India for the year 2013–2014. Specifically, we address the question of how households use temporary labour migration as a coping mechanism to minimise the risk posed by climate variables such as drought, floods, cyclone etc. In doing so, the paper uses a binary choice model (logistic regression) to examine the potential socioeconomic and demographic factors along with climatic risk that determine the probability of migration of workers in select Indian semi-arid villages. The paper uses data from International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT). The results show that among all climatic risk anomalies, maximum households in SAT villages are affected by drought risk. It is accounted that 69% of households are influenced by the drought risk. With respect to compensation of climatic risk, around 17% of non-migrant households received government support, while only 9% of migrant households received such assistance in this study. Also, the logistic regression models predict that the probability of household having any temporary migrants is significantly determined by climatic risk along with other demographic and socio-economic factors. To the best of the authors' knowledge, perhaps this is the first paper that makes a direct approach of linking climatic risk with temporary labour migration in semi-arid tropics region of India. © 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd